Wednesday History: September 30

Today in history: the first nuclear submarine, riots at Ole Miss and No. 60, according to history.com.

George Herman Ruth was born in 1865 in Baltimore. He was nicknamed Gig (soft g's). He was unruly as a child and was sent to an orphanage where he lived until he was 19. Ruth then signed as a pitcher by the Orioles.

Ruth's contract was sold to the Boston Red Sox and his teammates nicknamed him "Babe" for his naivete in 1910. Babe's contract then was sold to the Yankees, where he switched to the outfield. He became known as "The Bambino" until his retirement in 1935.

In 1921, Ruth set a record of 59 homers. In 1927, he hit 16 home runs in September alone, on his way to tying his previous record. On Sept. 30, he hit No. 60 against lefty Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators.

Ruth died of throat cancer in 1948.

In 1947, Russian born U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover was in charge and began working on an atomic submarine. In 1952, the Nautilus keel was laid by President Hary S. Truman. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across the bow in 1954, launching it into the Thames River in Connecticut. It first ran under nuclear power in 1955 after being commissioned in 1954.

The USS Nautilus was 319 feet, weighed 3,180 tons and traveled at 20 knots. In August 1958, its first voyage was to the North Pole. The Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 after 25 years and 50,000 miles and designated as a national landmark in 1982.

In 1962, former U.S. Air Force serviceman James Meredith, an African-American, was accepted to the University of Mississippi, which revoked his acceptance when they learned of his race. Ole Miss was court ordered to admit Meredith but he found the doors blocked by the governor. On Sept. 28, 1962, the governor was ordered to cease interference with desegregation at the university or be fined $10,000 per day.

On Sept. 30, U.S. marshals escorted Meredith onto the campus, setting off riots and two were killed. More than 3,000 federal soldiers suppressed the racial violence. Meredith graduated from Ole Miss in 1963 with a political science degree.

On June 4, 1966, Meredith began a lone civil rights march intending to walk from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss. Two days into the March Against Fear, he was shot by a sniper and sent to the hospital.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael continued the march. Meredith was able to rejoin and finish with the others on June 26.